Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty

Irving slowed his step, keeping his distance, his instincts screaming at him that there was something wrong with the whole scenario. However, he could not just let such easy prey walk off when his pockets could be lined with money, could he? What was there to be scared of?

Nothing frightened Irving Beck. The professor may be tall, but Irving was taller. Having spent a decade toiling in the brickyards, mines and ironworks, he had developed broad shoulders and thick forearms, which intimidated most men. He had triumphed in many bar-room brawls, even fought in a few semi-professional bare-knuckle boxing tournaments, so taking down a wiry academic should have posed little concern to a man like him.

“You are not going to disappoint me, are you?” Professor Moriarty had stopped in the middle of the alleyway, with his back to Irving, still presenting the easiest target that could be imagined. One punch to the back of the head and the man would be down for a considerable amount of time. “Come on. I had the highest expectations for you.”

Irving came to an abrupt halt.

Professor Moriarty spun on his heel to face him, spreading his arms in a defenceless way, moving with a surprising agility for a man of his age. How old was he? There were perhaps not quite as many lines around his eyes as Irving had first imagined.

“What are you waiting for, Irving Beck?”

While he recognised the professor, as he was something of a local name, there was absolutely no chance that a man of his standing should ever have heard of the name Irving Beck.

He could not risk an assault now.

“I’m just passing on my way home, sir.” Irving resumed his walk, pulling on the rim of his cap in deference as he strode past the professor, keen to put as much distance between himself and these strange events as possible. “Didn’t mean to spook you, sir.”

“Oh, splendid,” the professor called after him. “An explanation, an apology, and you called me sir, acknowledging my nat ural superiority. You are evidently an honourable, honest and humble man. Although, saying ‘sir’ the second time was a little too much, it made it sound like an act.”

Irving kept walking.

“Your stratagem contained numerous flaws,” the professor continued. “Primarily, there is an unnecessarily high risk of the crime being witnessed, plus an uncertainty over whether I even withdrew any money. Great risk, for potentially no reward? That is bad mathematics by anybody’s calculation.”

Irving was disconcerted by the professor’s confidence. Despite having deliberately followed the professor into the unpopulated alleys, he was suddenly very keen to be surrounded by people again. He felt suspicious that rather than having orchestrated events himself, he had in fact blindly walked into a scenario contrived by the professor.

There was a dark-haired woman ahead, leaning against the wall. She was a common streetwalker, her young face covered in an unattractively large amount of white powder and black eyeliner, her skirt already hitched vulgarly above her knee.

Under normal circumstances, he may have stopped to talk to her, but for now Irving was just grateful that someone else was present. The feeling did not last long.

“The professor ain’t done talkin’ yet, love.” She stepped out to block his path, while toying with a small knife, bringing him once again to an abrupt halt. “You’re bein’ rude.”

Even armed with the knife, Irving imagined he could overpower her. Most people did not have the courage to use weapons; if she hesitated for a moment he would be able to disarm her and knock her down. There was, however, always the chance that she was comfortable using the knife – the way she spun it playfully around her fingers certainly implied she had some experience using the weapon. He was also unsure just how far the old man was behind him – if Moriarty intervened at the same time, then things would almost certainly end badly for Irving.

“Still calculating the odds, Mister Beck?” Professor Moriarty stepped up behind him, having been a lot closer than Irving expected, speaking directly into his left ear. “Very wise. It always comes down to the numbers in the end. I do assure you, the best thing you can do is listen to me.”

Irving turned to face the man.

He was momentarily tempted to thump the professor in the face, but a gentle touch from the streetwalker, directly between his shoulder blades, reminded him that such ideas might end very badly for him.

Moriarty smiled. “Separately, you could easily overpower either me or this young woman, but together we are more than a match for you. As Aristotle observed, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We can always do more if we organise and co-operate.”

“What do you want with me?” Irving asked, by now certain that this was no accidental meeting.

“I am recruiting, Mister Beck.”

“I can’t see me working in any university, Mister Moriarty.”

“Mathematics is but one of the fields I work in,” the professor replied. “I have also been known to operate in other fields somewhat more outside the modern moral code.”

“Crime,” translated the streetwalker helpfully.

“My normal associates are otherwise engaged, so I find myself in need of individuals who can recognise an opportunity and pursue it, like you did outside the bank. I need men who are prepared to risk their lives, who have no qualms about liberating wealth from others, but who are able to think on their feet and adapt their plans as necessary. Again, I believe you are such a man. Are you?”

Irving considered his options.

Life had rarely given him many opportunities, except the ones he had taken by brute force, but he had little to lose by playing along with this man’s plans for now.

He nodded. “If there’s money, I’m always interested in taking it.”

“Excellent,” Moriarty replied. “You see, I said, it always comes down to the numbers. Be on the nine a.m. train if you wish to pursue this most auspicious opportunity, Mister Beck. I shall explain all once the full team is assembled.”

Moriarty spun on his heel and marched off down the alleyway, disappearing with remarkable speed.

“I do apologise for the knife,” the streetwalker added, walking past him, swinging her hips provocatively, while slipping the weapon into her sleeve. “But you do get the most unsavoury sorts down these back alleys.”

Irving boarded the locomotive and worked his way through the carriages. He found Moriarty sat in a first-class cabin, with one eye on his pocket watch and the other on the compartment door.

The professor beckoned him in.

There were two other members of the team already seated around the table.

One of them was the dark-haired streetwalker, who sat in the corner with her feet pulled up on to the seat, her chin placed just above her knees. She gave Irving a small smile as he sat down at the far end of the table, gazing at him through her dark eyelashes. The final member of the team was a burly middle-aged sailor, in a smart blue uniform, with a great grey moustache that ran all the way around his face and into his sideburns.

“Nine o’clock.” Moriarty clicked his pocket watch closed and then tucked it into the pocket of his waistcoat. A moment later, with a great hiss of the steam, the locomotive began to pull out of the station.

“Lady and gentlemen, this is our target.” Moriarty dropped a photograph on the table, which showed a black and white image of a three-masted steamship. “This is the RMS Heroic .”

“I don’t see no lady here,” growled the sailor sourly, ignoring the photograph and glaring at the streetwalker.

“Oh, love,” she replied, “I can be anything you want, if the price is right.”